Ona Butkevičiūtė-Griniuvienė was born in 1921 to physician Marija Butkevičienė and Lithuanian Army captain Pranas Butkevičius. She grew up with her younger brother Povilas in Žaliakalnis, Kaunas. The family lived on Molėtų Street. Her mother practised medicine, loved music, played the piano and taught children to play.

During the Nazi occupation, Ona, her mother Marija and her brother Povilas helped rescue a Jewish girl, Noemi, from the Kaunas ghetto.

Marija Butkevičienė had known Fruma Gurvič since her student days. In February 1944, at Fruma’s request, arrangements were made to rescue five-year-old Noemi. The girl was secretly carried out of the Kaunas ghetto in a potato sack and brought to the Butkevičius home in Žaliakalnis.

Ona, then twenty-three, cared for Noemi with her mother and fifteen-year-old brother Povilas. To avoid suspicion, the girl was presented as the daughter of a Lithuanian mother and a Georgian father. Even when a German officer visited the home, Noemi’s true identity remained undiscovered.

The Butkevičius family cared for the girl until the Nazi occupation ended. After the war, Noemi moved to Israel. Marija Butkevičienė and Fruma Gurvič remained in contact until Marija’s death.

After the war, the Butkevičius family suffered Soviet repression. In July 1945, Ona’s brother Povilas was sentenced for his beliefs to ten years in prison and five years of exile. He was imprisoned but avoided exile, returning to Lithuania in 1955.

Ona Butkevičiūtė-Griniuvienė died in 2014.

On 28 August 1998, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance institution Yad Vashem recognized Ona Butkevičiūtė-Griniuvienė and her mother Marija Butkevičienė as Righteous Among the Nations.